Star Wars Episode VII - The Force Awakens (SPOILERS!!!)

I hate to double post but I'll start the discussion with some questions for everyone.

- What was your reaction to the reveal of Kylo Ren's real identity? Any similarities from the characters from the EU?
- Supreme Leader Snoke...possibly Darth Plagueis reincarnated?
- Who are Rey's parents? Luke, Han and Leia, perhaps a creation through the force?
- What of the other characters from the OT? Wheres Lando? Wheres Wedge?

I'll reply to anyone's response with my thoughts, I just want to get some discussion going.

There are a bunch of little nit-picky things I could go into, such as the fact that TIEs aren't two-pilot fighters and are incapable of landing on their wings and such, but to me the film's three biggest failings were that the pacing was waaaaaaaay too fast, the plot was more or less a rehashing of Episode IV with some other shameless nods to other films from the original trilogy thrown in, and the balancing of comedy versus drama wasn't done well, especially in the case of Finn who felt like a butt-monkey almost as much if not more than he felt like a main hero. If there were a checklist of everything that should have made a great Star Wars movie TFA would have hit most of the checks, but it just lacks the soul/heart that I was looking for in a new Star Wars film and didn't give me the warm fuzzies I get every time I watch ANY of the other six films, even the prequilogy.

The cinematography was well done, the action scenes awesome, but those alone don't make a great star wars film. I'm especially insulted that they wiped the entire canon just to give us a rehashing of what we've already seen from the franchise; if you're going to wipe the canon then I at least expect that you are going to be treading new ground. I would rather they try to go in a new direction and fail than just make a lazy, safe rehashing of what they've already given us that takes no risks.


With that main bit expressed, time for a little more nit-picking and commenting...xD

1. Kylo Ren - What a terrible main villain! He never felt scary or intimidating for me, especially after he started throwing violent tantrums like a petulant man-child every time some little thing didn't go his way. His build was faaaar too wiry to make that big, heavy seeming helmet work, and even the helmet itself and his blatant Vader fanboyism was annoying. I actually liked him slightly better once he stopped wearing the bloody thing because then at least he was standing on his own as a Sith rather than as a wannabe Vader. Also, is power level and usage was extremely inconsistent. We see him being able to freeze blaster shots mid-air (What the fuck?) as well as hold people frozen with the Force. He does this to Rey herself mid-movie, and to the pilot guy (Whose name didn't stick with me all that well) at the beginning. Yet despite that, he doesn't do that against Finn or Rey during the (supposed >.>) climax of the film, and then proceeds to actually struggle against an non-sensitive, untrained Stormtrooper (Who himself had lost in a fight more readily against another stormtropper earlier) before losing outright to an untrained sensitive. By the end of the movie I was finding it hard to believe that this was the person who single-handedly destroyed the budding New Jedi Order. It makes no sense that he wouldn't use such power against at least Finn except as a lazy plot device that the writer had to resort to once they realized that they had made Kylo Ren too strong for their heroes to realistically defeat. Also, Ben? Seriously? That's Luke's son, not Han's. If you're going to use Jacen Solo's character name the bloody character Jacen Solo!! Again, to take that much from canon after making such a big deal of decanonizing the canon is just aggravating. Halfway through the movie Stormro was in my head asking if he could put the petulant whelp in his place yet...>.>

2. BB-8 - Bloody hell, I wanted to punt that stupid, illogical little sack of bolts. The design makes no sense in terms of both canon precedent AND practicality (As shown when BB-8 was bouncing around the Falcon like a pinball). It was painfully obvious that BB-8 was designed to be a cute, marketable R2-D2 replacement for the movie. Even BB-8's vocalizations annoyed me, sounding more like rapid-fire, random noise than the more deliberate beeping of R2.

3. The First Order - I actually really liked The First Order for the most part. General Hux chewed the ham a bit during his big speech (Is it bad that my first thought was of Jeremy Irons in Dungeons and Dragons? xD) but it was actually kind of amusing rather than annoying in comparison to a lot of other things. I particularly liked the fact that all of the officers and leadership seem to be young, reflecting the fact that most of the Imperial senior command chain was destroyed/killed either on the first Death Star or during the battle to destroy the second Death Star. Captain Phasma was kind of a bad-ass (Hopefully we'll get to see more of her in Episode VIII), and now that I think about it she actually had a little bit of a Boba Fett-ish kind of feel, what with her whole general silent, helmeted badassness. With that all said, however, I can do without Kylo Ren entirely, plus I demand to know where the hell the rest of the Knights of Ren were? This Death Star 3.0 base of theirs seems to have been their main plan, so one would have thought that if they had an internal order of Force Sensitives or something like that they would have had more than just Kylo present on the base. Where were they? Snokes himself even said that he put Kylo Ren in charge of the Knights of Ren, making it clear that they existed before Kylo Ren became their leader. I'm sure that we'll see more of them down the road in the later movies (Possibly to parallel a growing number of Jedi perhaps?) but I just find their complete lack of presence to be more of a plot hole than I care to let by unscathed.

4. Han Solo - The fact that he was going to die was so obvious that I hesitate to call it something that can be spoiled. Even if you ignore the fact that Harrison Ford is too old to be able to make two more of these films as Han Solo (Hell, he injured himself and had to be air lifted out once during this shoot), the moment they set the scene with the walkway I knew that there was no way he was going to be coming out of this alive. Hell, even as far back as when Leia asked him to bring their son home I was thinking "Yeah, no; your son is going to kill him." Halfway through his conversation with Kylo Ren I was sitting there thinking "Just get it over with and stab your Father already! Bloody hell, we all know you're going to do it. Stop trying to fake us out with your badly written attempts to make us think that he is going to heel-face turn in this movie." In addition, the repeating joke with Han really liking Chewie's Bowcaster was beyond annoying. You mean to tell me that over thirty-plus years of working together that Han has NEVER once fired that weapon? Hell, even if he somehow hadn't they kept delivering that joke over and over to the point that I felt like shouting "It's never going to be funny! Give it up!" Also, the effects work when his body fell into the pit was absolutely TERRIBLE...>.<

I'm sure that there are more things that I could rant and/or nit-pick about, but for now this is all that I can think of so I'll go ahead and throw them out there. Feel free to discuss/comment/disagree; I'm still trying to figure out how soooo many people have been acting like this was an amazing and fulfilling Star Wars movie. xD

Okay....

SPOILERS

Now, I would like to point out that overall, I liked the movie. It wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination, and the people who have ranked it above A New Hope and Return of the Jedi are smoking some wacky tabacky. It's not THAT good. It's passable, certainly, and better than the prequels. Granted, that's about as hard as sitting down...but I digress. I had a few issues with the movie...maybe some of them will be addressed, maybe not. We'll see when VIII comes out, which yes, I am going to see. That said, I'll try not to be overly critical or harsh, and I will point out things that I did like about the movie. Okay, on we go.

Bugbear #1 - The First Order/Rebellion:
I did like the concept of the First Order. I would have liked, however, to have been given some more background on them and their origin. Where did they come from? Why isn't the New Republic fighting them if they're so obviously evil? It's been 30 years...I'm pretty sure you have consolidated your power by this point and have some sort of army/fleet. So why is there a small Rebellion of X-Wing pilots and Princess...um, I'm sorry...GENERAL Leia fighting them and you're not? What precisely is the relationship of the Rebellion to the Republic? Rebellion implies subjugation by a foreign power, yet the members of this new Rebellion are citizens of the Republic, which is NOT under occupation by the First Order. So why a Rebellion? It seems like Abrams didn't want to be bothered with fleshing out a story and just wanted to jump to the action. Speaking of story, that leads to...

Bugbear #2 - The Force Awakens a New Hope of the Return of the Jedi Striking Back at the Cloned Sith Phantom Wars:
So one of my biggest problems with this movie is they went too far with the nostalgia and tributes. A lot of it felt shoehorned in...only there for the purpose of going "Looky looky! This was in der other moviees!!!". Like the dejarik board randomly turning on when Fin hits it. Or him just pulling out the training remote onto the screen for a brief second while looking for bandages for Chewbacca. Or Fin shooting down his first TIE fighter in the seat of the Falcon. Or any number of other images shoved in there for no other reason than to try and pull at the heartstrings. It was TOO MUCH. The movie played it way too safe and relied on an almost event for event retelling of A New Hope rather than having a new story to stand on its own. Even at the end with the X-Wings flying down a trench to destroy the Mine-Is-Bigger-Than-Yours,-George Star. Which, I'm sorry. That was ridiculous. By this point, when I see an over-sized planet killer, I know its going to be blown up by the end of the movie. That's what Star Wars has taught me. So all the suspense goes right out the window. This, I imagine, was also the reason for a "Rebellion" that was completely unneeded. Or that the new Jedi (Rey) was an expert pilot with no family on a desert planet. Just too damn much. Speaking of characters...

Bugbear #3 - The characters...oh God...the characters:
So, this is going to be a longer one, and I apologize in advance. Going to have to subhead this one. First up:

- Fin: His character makes no damn sense whatsoever. This is a person who, by his own admission, was taken by the First Order at a young age, indoctrinated and brainwashed by this cult, showed no signs at all EVER of doubting himself, the Order, his missions, etc., showed no signs of being anything other than a perfect cultist (as told by Silver Stormie), and then all of a sudden in his VERY FIRST battle, he sees one of his squadmates die and decides "Fuck it. I'm done. Time to defect.". Really?! Well, I'm certainly glad you thought that one through, dude. It's a major life decision and not something to be done lightly. *sigh* I know Abrams is not a story-oriented person. That he misses a lot of little details because he plays more toward the action side of movies. I get that. But this was REALLY bad. This is supposed to be one of your main protagonists, and you fuck up his story from the very start. Anyway, next character...

- Rey: Uuuuuuuuum....not really any huge problems with her. She is actually kind of badass, despite being a Luke clone. I'm fine with having a kick-ass female lead who does not need rescuing. Her being an untrained adept and beating a (supposedly) well-trained Sith warrior, the head of his Knightly Order...okay. LITTLE on the unbelievable side, but whatevs. It was awesome to watch that emo Vader fanboy get his ass handed to him. Her getting Anakin's/Luke's old lightsaber was something they need to touch on. Simply telling us that it's a "very good question but not right now" is not good enough, considering when last we saw it, it was taking a tumble into Bespin's atmosphere. A gas giant. So...yeah, really interested as to how it ended up where it did.

- Han Solo: *sigh* Okay, this one hit a little close to home since Han was my favorite character growing up...I'm not glad that he's dead, but I'm glad that Harrison Ford got his wish. He always said it made no sense to him that Han had survived Return of the Jedi. Just...if you're going to kill him, give him a bit more dignity that THAT. Seriously. Chewbacca going all berserker rage was awesome, though for a moment I thought he had blown himself up.

- Kylo Ren: Hoo boy...where to start with him. He's a laughable villain. That's a good start. I almost took him seriously. Then he started having temper tantrums and being an emo Vader fan boy. I didn't get the purpose of his helmet. I mean, obviously it was a Vader tribute, but if it wasn't to help him breathe and was more ceremonial and of personal importance in nature then why didn't he only remove it in private? If it was just the helmet of his particular knightly order, then why wear it out of combat? Also, as referenced with Rey, I'm not sure how he got his ass beat by her, especially taking into account his apparent power with the Force and her being completely untrained. I want to see more of the Knights of Ren. I'm curious as to the role they're going to play.

- BB-8: Kill it. Fucking kill it now. Despite it being of a completely irrational and unworkable design, it was completely unneeded. One little piece of a galaxy map is gone, and you couldn't extrapolate where Luke was based on EVERYTHING ELSE YOU HAVE ON YOUR 95% COMPLETED MAP? *sigh* Its only reason for existing was to look cute, sell merchandise, and further add to the movie being a New Hope reboot by having the Empire chase a droid with important information contained within it.

- The Old Cast: The reunion between Leia and Han was well done. Sweet, tasteful, and believable. Then I nearly pissed myself laughing when C-3PO butted onscreen to greet Han. It reminded me of their relationship in the old movies, and in a GOOD way without being forced down my throat. It alluded to it instead of copying it.

That's about all I can think of at this rate. I might come up with more, but this was pretty much it for the big problems. There were other minor small things, but not of any consequence.

can we also all take a moment to appreciate this little detail about the Kylo vs Rey and Finn fight: imgur.com/gallery/7EhqwbF

with regards to BB-8, dude's way more practically designed than say... C-3PO who would have tripped his arse down that stair case that BB-8 rolled seamlessly down, and you think BB-8 had trouble in the falcon? oh man, 3PO would have done way worse, least BB-8 had the grapple hooks to stop himself. and R2-D2? yeah, not sure he'd have taken those stairs all too well either without jump jetting down them. Also, point of note, it is a completely workable design, they even used practical models of it on set, oh and comic con 2015, so...

As a point on the Kylo Ren fight, I feel the need to bring attention to the fact that, yes he is a skilled warrior. Yes he is trained Force user. But his biggest flaw was the fact that he lost his head. He frequently liked to throw tantrums like a little bitch, which certainly makes it believable that he is Anakin's grandson...but that's not the point. Kylo Ren is the embodiment of instability, at least in my opinion. And as such comes the ability to seriously screw the pooch even if you happen to wield the bigger stick. He wasn't in the right mind set to be fighting Rey and Finn together. One or the other maybe, but not both. And let's not shy away from the fact that, while Finn did hold his own fairly well for the most part, he still got his ass kicked in the end. Kylo was injured and drained both physically and mentally by the time he fought Rey. Rey knew how to handle herself in a fight. I don't think she should have escaped without injury, but Ren was also not trying to kill her. He wanted her so he could bring her to Snoke. I don't even like Ren as a bad guy because I think he is being the emo-child wannabe that Anakin was in Episode II and III. And while Anakin managed to make his whole whiny, emo thing work for him, clearly Ren cannot. Point is, the scales were tipped against him from the start, and his still managed to hold his own quite well.

See, now that's the type of criticism I like to see. When people take a step back from their original train of thought and collect more information. Well said. And after a quick read and reflection on how the film played out, it isn't a huge stretch of the imagination to think along those lines. I mean, in the end, we are all going to dissect this film and take what we want to take from it. That's just how it always seems to work. As for how good the film is and all that jazz, it's entirely a matter of opinion, and there isn't anything that can be done about it now. Take what you can from it, and hope for better on the next go around. Again, well said and thanks for the honorable mentions. It's nice to know I played a part in helping clear some issues up.

as movie it a great watch, but i felt like i watch star wars as interpreted by a star trek fan, ....my biggest issue besides the wack lightsaber battles was Luke,like my dude what are you doing, return of the jedi? there are still no jedi and you're standing on an island watching the sunset while getting old, Yoda felt it in the force the wackness of Luke Skywalker and just said f it i am be one with the force now , ...i am pretty sure Rey and Kylo Ren are gonna turn out to be brother and sister because originality is not a driving factor in this generation of star wars ,it looked Leia hid her away after Han bounced and her brother disappeared because her son turned to the darkside , yet she keep fighting because she is the only one with any balls,... Leia is the real mvp .... people complain a lot about the episodes 1-2-3 but at least they attempted to be original and gave us epic lightsaber battles, and for me the lightsaber battles are what really separate star wars from any other sci fi space odyssey movie

The way I perceived Kylo was extremely insecure and when seeing him this way his actions and failing seemed logical.
My reasons for perceiving him that way are, the Darth Vader helmet: It made him appear to idolise him to the extent of wanting to model himself on him and make him proud, this puts alot of pressure on him as well as making him extremely vulnerable, each failure is going to break his self esteem more. He came across as though he felt abandoned.
Leia and Han made it sound like he turned to the to the darkside quite late in age? Having the legacy he does have seemed to weigh heavy upon his shoulders while at the same time desperately wishing he was treated with equal respect and fear as that of Vader. He also appears to be only part way through his training with Snoke.
As I viewed him in this way, he seemed like a spoiled, temper tantrum prone brat, but it was logical.

In all honestly had he been a total badass equally as good or surpassing Vader, I would have been dissapointed. There were flaws in the film but I loved it!

oh, and Han dying....I was absolutely devastated and wept like a baby to the point of being comforted by 9 year old nephew...